a report by Browallia and Smaugur
GERP (2026.01.23-25)
Its that time of year again, “Have we arrived yet, have we arrived yet?”, awaiting scene-‘children’ (in their best years!) while waiting X-mas for the scene. And finally, it arrived, and under the Wunderbaum of Skövde, the GERP-party box was opened and revealed surprises… joy!
Short version: Amiga, cosy, many entries in compos, on-time schedule and fire alarm.
Short version in numbers: 7 Amiga demos, 7 Amiga 40k intros, 14 chip-, 5 wild-, 16 Amiga 4ch-, 4 No CPU Amiga- , 7 Amiga Graphics-, 7 other platform demo- and 9 color cycle- entries = 1 success
LONG VERSION
On Friday already over hundred people showed up. New this year when checking in visitors via an app was a bracelet, fancy indeed. Organizers had announced more space (up to 160) and some days before, a demo quiz where you got points if correct and fast answer). Some sources said that this was difficult (e.g. “what kind of fruit does the alien ship has on the roof in Desert Dream – a melon or a lemon? hehe). In the moment of writing, we must await the result file because we missed this part. Some from party crew had difficult to sleep. With respect to privacy, we will not reveal who was talking too much until 5 am for another report.
Images: the DESIRABLE challenge trophy with the winners already written on it. Middle: some activity going on. Right: the GERP-bracelet.
SATURDAY
This is the intense day, with deadlines starting at 12, and two compo blocks 14:00 and 21:00. Let’s spoil the entries in the order of appearance for all compos:
Smaugur met Hyde^Andromeda^Dead Roman from Norway, he told me he had been on GERP 2024 when he released A murder of scrolls (2nd place in Amiga demo competition @ Gerp 2024), but not 2025, he loves GERP. Let’s blend in this small chat here:
| Smaugur: What is your first demo party? Hyde: It was No Limits and IMP-666 Amiga Conference 1990 held on 5th – 7th October 1990 @ Arendal, Aust-Agder, Norway and it was around 200 people who attended the party and it was held at a school. So, it was the group No limits and IMP-666 who were the orgas in 1990. He clearly remembers the winning demo The Hunt for 7th October by Cryptoburners and that the vector graphics was awesome in the demo and it was all over the big screen, an unforgettable memory from the past. Smaugur: How old where you back in 1990? Hyde: I was 15 years old Smaugur: Cool! I was 16 years old @ my first party in 1993, it was ECC (European Computer Conference). Smaugur: Will you release something here at GERP 2026? Hyde: No not this time, but maybe next year, blink! blink! |
Ok that sounds great, we are faithful indeed.
GRAPHIC COMPOS
First out in first compo block was the color cycling compo. With half of the entries from Tulou members, what to say, they dominate the compo, but it’s still Steffest/Desire who grabs the first place with a solid hand, a wrinkled face and an ocean in the globe, followed by Todi and Dalton.
Later after the colorcycling compo around 16:00, Smaugur met Steffest and mentioned that the colorcycling didn’t work out and that he needed to use DP5 instead of his enhanced DP-JS, so Steffest said when hearing this: Ohh crap! It must be a bug! He could understand the color-cycle bug later in DP-JS so a solution is coming – GREAT! Amigaaaaaaaaah!!!!
In the 16 color gfx compo, pleasant to see that Joker/Tlu was back after 20 years. Rightly a c64 entry won the compo (Rainbows and Kittens by Optic / Desire ^ Planet Jazz). Critikill created a very minimalistic picture with 3 colors (Soulstealer). It was first made for a c64 compo but added a color, nice and different style. A skinned copycat was indeed a sized-up image from .misha.’s picture in Amiga graphics (wonder what Facet’s contribution was? – the double pixel idea? 😛 )
Winners from 16 col and Amiga graphics compo Gerp 2026. Original images, see references below (these are photos during compo on big screen.
In the Amiga graphic compo, the contributions were a bit more impressive year 2024, but still not bad and in general high quality. Laz/3LE (welcome return!) released a cool face. Else images from Facet and .misha./Nah impressed most.
MUSIC COMPOS
We were expecting some more unz unz gabber at the party but nothing there. Winning in the chip compo was goto80 with a noisy entry. Bang-bang-bang, suddenly turned to beep-beep-beep loud and rhythmic.
beep-beep-beep.
Let’s take a non-intentional break, just before 2nd compo block with four channel music.
The fire alarm sounded in the building and like lemmings, we lumbered outside to the song of the sirens. Luckily the fire trucks didn’t come because a roasted Atari, and we were told it was a compressor getting too warm elsewhere in the building.
Back to the Amiga 4ch compo it was pleasant with not too many entries where you start zooming out. A range between 32k and around 800kb. Me (Browallia) liked the song from Banjo Guy Ollie^Numpties, but winning was Alpa/iNSANE, 2nd zabutom/Razor 1911^Up Rough, and third place the trio Bonefish and JosSs and Mygg. Smaugur had a small chat with Mygg/INS^GMN^Reality^BBZ, mentioning the show and entertainment to jump patterns and some orgaz who are not a big fan of this.
If you are lucky, you may read a music review by Smaugur elsewhere 🙂
NO CPU COMPO
It was four entries in the compo that Blueberry invited to, together with D.A. from Evoke end of Summer’25. All four entries had sound and were really impressive how to approach different techniques then usual coding here (e.g. using the co-processor copper and the Blitter).
Four good entries we must say, already the first with the running man, not fast enough for the parallax scroller (by Losso, AttentionWhore). Then Akronyme Analogiker delivered the monotonous PONG until a vector-rendered face showed up being aggressive with amusing comments, until the screen crashed. Mop2 from A.A told that he filmed his own head to produce the motion. Blueberry/Loonies rotated around in an effect seen so much now in 2025 😉 but now without CPU. Finally, Zymosis with “Bring It Back” managed a complete set of effects just by tickling everything except the CPU. The Finnish guys were rightfully very proud of this, sitting around the stage.
So, four entries in a completely new compo is really great, congrats! We wonder which parties are going to pick this trend up now?
There were of course various platforms represented at GERP like previous years, such as Atari, c64, dominating “the other platform demo”-compo. Dekadence released for ms-DOS and in wild there was a PC-demo flirting with the Amiga scene from Logicrunch. Grand finale was seven intros and seven demos. At this point here people started to sing and be in a good beer mode – why not? It was a nice pixel-logo from Critikill in Nah’s intro and some kind of metal-looked particles forming circles. Fnuque only used 1/20 of 40k with their “5%” and in the loader (Blueberry?) encouraged people to compete with only 2kb. If remember correct, Planet jazz grabbed 3rd place later. Mygg beeing involved in a couple of productions this time, also did the music to Bitbendaz release wasnt very suitable to watch for small children. We agree 🙂
AMIGA DEMO
With seven fresh demos for the last activity for the beamer, the time log says 01:05 on the clock. The Electronic Knights released the second music disk during the party, opening the demo show and the Atari group DHS made another demo with a one scroller effect. Then a slideshow from Hackers Media Industries with pictures from a travel, funny because it was too long , so thanks lord that part II speeded up a bit. Bitbendaz released Big hat, no cattle with a funny prompt causing some laughs followed by Istari made a television show with three classic scene sterotypes and typical pixel characters from Grip who also coded it. 5 minutes before deadline, Browallia succeeded to distrurb Five Finger Punch when they wanted to submit, so I guess it was a relaxed Corel to enjoy their demo. The music composed by maZe just like previous products from them at Gerp. It was a complicated game stone-scissor-paper where the FFP-slap in the end defeated other options. The slurry with microscopic monsters were funny. Well-deserved first place in demo was also the last show of GERP 2026, “Bacon of Hope” by Desire. Here two coders (Platon and gigabates) managed a two-part demo – squids and ocean topic in the first part, and pigs and bacon (HAM) in the second part, overlayed with philosophical quotations. There is something with HAM we guess, and this was just like in 2023 HAMazing and a worthy winner.
FASTED ISSUE OF SPEED EVER
Some other things were released, like an Amiga music disk by Mania was released and shown during the party with contributions from Goto80, JosSs and Reed. And I guess nobody at the party missed the flyers from Speed spread out in every room and bathroom, but more impressive was of course right after the price cermony, got a message from Magic/Nah-kolor that Speed #74 , GERP edition was released with modified compo picture from .misha.
After midnight, it was time for price ceremory.
On a phone, Malmix/Fatzone^Nature read up rank #3, #2 and #1. It was pretty straight forward and a bit too fast when people entering/exiting the stage. Guess all were tired, but we manage to take some notes of this year’s GERP-champions. To mention a few, Facet won the compo with his 32 color picture “the Watcher”, and got a pixel art book together with a white statuette. Price of NO CPU compo went to Zymosis, who got a mother board but without the 060 processor 😉 For the demo compo it became kind of obvious that Desire would win. Check result file for complete info.
LAST WORDS
It has been speculated if the party should grow bigger to get rid of the waiting queue. Talking with Bore/Traktor if there should be fast compos or not at GERP. It may be nice with something for the leftovers on Sunday with a symbolic price e.g. win sugar to your breakfast coffee that party-crew offer perhaps? At site, I did not miss anything because of the nice pace to meet and talk with people and we left early on Sunday. However maybe something for sofa-sceners a fast compo could be squeezed in. The rest I think just had fun being there.
After this party, me (Browallia) just miss one thing after this inspirational party-boost: a GERP t-shirt for visitors.
Smaugur, some last words from you?
This is by far one of the most epic Gerp parties I have gone to, because of the great atmosphere @ Gerp 2026 and the great compo productions this year! It was the same cool magnitude as in Gerp 2024 in my opinion but with an interesting twist the Gerp orgas opened a room more for the sceners and like magic they had room for 160 Amiga sceners, and the more the merrier in my opinion, because it’s all about Amiga LOVE!
REFERENCES
Web site: GERP
Official results: here
no cpu compo challenge: from Demostue Allst*ars at Evoke 2025
Feature image on top, “Neon Afterglow” by .misha.
Images from productions: best viewed original and not from photo captured, for example scene.org, or Demozoo.
the Diskmag
-tD starts with a lower case ‘t’, anywhere in the sentence.
Submit your own article, or contact nukleUS!
Back to the Diskmag #1 (online), Back to the Diskmag (overview), back to Diskmags (main)
Amiga online magazines (home), Nukleus (home)
Cool report! Sadly never got to say hi to you guys at the party, but I guess there is allways nexy year, right? The party was awesome, reminded me of the oldschool parties held at schools and such. Very nice atmosphere!
Thanks for the comment. Yep it was a pitty that we didnt meet at Gerp, But agree, there is always another party! best wishes /brow